SOLUTIONS Staffinghttp://betterstaffingresults.com
Better Staffing ResultsFri, 20 Feb 2015 13:38:13 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=4.1.1The Problem with Your VMShttp://betterstaffingresults.com/2014/08/13/the-problem-with-your-vms/
http://betterstaffingresults.com/2014/08/13/the-problem-with-your-vms/#respondWed, 13 Aug 2014 18:55:45 +0000http://betterstaffingresults.com/?p=2783It’s important to have full visibility into the orders you have placed with your staffing providers, consolidated billing, and uniform control of the process of bringing new people into your organization from outside firms. Those are all good and important goals. But those goals shouldn’t override your more important goals: getting the right people into your company and onto the right team.

The problem with a VMS when it comes to hiring is that the technology is a barrier to real, effective, value-creating communication. Real communication is essential for making good hiring decisions.

Something’s Come Between Us

Your providers are required to view open positions on the VMS software and upload the their candidate’s resumes into the system to be reviewed by the person making the hiring decision. But many of your people are busy trying to meet their objectives, and unless Human Resources is the person doing the hiring, that manager is already down headcount. It takes the hiring manager too long to review the resumes, and the best candidates are often lost to other positions.

When the manager is able to make time to work on hiring, reviewing resumes isn’t a great value-adding experience. The resume isn’t the individual, and some managers simply look for the “magic words” or experience to decide to interview a candidate. Other managers can’t distinguish a “good candidate” from a “bad candidate.”

Since this arm’s length process has become the standard and real communication lacking, many of your providers are throwing resumes from CareerBuilder into the system, hoping to beat their competitors in this game of chance. Now you’re unhappy that people are throwing resumes into your system that you could just have easily pulled off CareerBuilder on your own.

Can We Talk?

When you communicate with a recruiter, you have an opportunity to discuss your real preferences, the cultural fit necessary, and what kind of individual has the greatest chance of succeeding in this role.

When you speak directly with the person sending you candidates, you get an understanding of why they chose the individuals that they want to put in front of you. You get to hear about the person’s background, what they want from a new position, and what makes work meaningful for them.

Over time, more communication allows the firm filling your needs to better dial in the candidates they place, and they become an extension of your company, making decisions as if they were part of your team.

Is there a more important decision you can make than who you hire? Should this process prevent you from knowing the people that are helping you to make this decision? More still, should it prevent them from knowing you?

We don’t think so.

]]>http://betterstaffingresults.com/2014/08/13/the-problem-with-your-vms/feed/0What I Learned from My First Job: Geoff Fullenhttp://betterstaffingresults.com/2014/08/11/what-i-learned-from-my-first-job-geoff-fullen/
http://betterstaffingresults.com/2014/08/11/what-i-learned-from-my-first-job-geoff-fullen/#respondMon, 11 Aug 2014 17:26:12 +0000http://betterstaffingresults.com/?p=2772I think I was about 15 or 16 when my mother helped me with an opportunity working for the City of Columbus Parks and Recreations Division at a local golf course. I’ll never forget her driving me to Raymond Memorial Golf Course near the intersection of Wilson and Trabue Road (I can’t believe I remember the actual street names. It must have been meaningful work without me recognizing it).

While nearing the actual golf course, you drive down the south side of the course where there are two seemingly never-ending, long par five holes. I mentioned to my mother how long the couple of holes were, mentioning how horrible it must be for whomever has to cut the 4-6 foot tall grass that act as barriers to the road. Little did I know that I would be cutting that long stretch of Hell for the next two weeks . . . with a push mower.

Once I arrived, it was apparent that I was the only young person in the landscaping barn. The barn was far removed from the glitz and glamour of the pro shop, clubhouse, and the pretty girls that worked as starters. Work began immediately. I was on my way to that horrible place, the ditch that separated the road from the course. I heard my peers laughing. No one wanted the ditch job. They left the push mowing to new folks that could not complain or turn it down.

My boss didn’t care about much of anything. He won a $1,000,000 lottery not only once but twice in my two-year tenure at this particular golf course.

I was told that the ditch job would take me 4 week (4 weeks of my summer vacation!). I was determined to not let that happen, so I knocked work out twice as fast as anyone before me, making a serious positive impression.

After so called “knocking the ball out of the course,” I was promoted to working some of the machinery. The golf course also was apart of another neighboring course named Wilson Golf Club. Wilson had 27 holes. Still having to prove myself I was ordered to mow 18 of the 27 holes. I finished my 18 before the other lad had finished his 9 holes. I was rewarded with an increase, and ruled the roost for the full summer and the following summer (While the millionaire sat around. Later heard he had spent every nickel of the $2,000,000 and went completely broke).

I learned that if you do the difficult work fast, people notice and give you bigger and better jobs. I also learned that even when things are going well, and you have a few bucks, you better keep hustling!

]]>http://betterstaffingresults.com/2014/08/11/what-i-learned-from-my-first-job-geoff-fullen/feed/0What I Learned from My First Job: Anthony Iannarinohttp://betterstaffingresults.com/2014/08/04/what-i-learned-from-my-first-job-anthony-iannarino/
http://betterstaffingresults.com/2014/08/04/what-i-learned-from-my-first-job-anthony-iannarino/#respondMon, 04 Aug 2014 17:39:26 +0000http://betterstaffingresults.com/?p=2757I was just 13 years old the summer between middle school and high school. My friend, Michael Coonrod, invited me to go to work with him and his mother at Villa Milano. My mom had just started her business, and we didn’t have much money (an early version of this business, in fact), so I jumped at the chance to work.

Villa Milano is an enormous banquet center, and they were doing a booming business and needed help. My job was to wash dishes. That sounded easy enough. But Michael and I had no idea how many dishes need to be washed in order to serve 1,000 people a full 7-course meal. Sometimes we had to wash dishes as fast as they were returned in order to keep up with all the different events going on at the same time.

The first lesson I learned washing dishes is that someone always complains about work that is nowhere near as bad as they make it out to be.

The person who worked at the front of the station had to rinse the dishes, run the garbage disposal, and load the dishwasher. There was no way you were going home wearing dry clothes at the end of the shift. And it could be kind of gross. When another dishwasher complained, I took the nozzle at the front of the station.

Other people complained about taking the dishes off the dishwasher. They griped about the dishes being too hot and burning their hands. The dishes were hot. They had to be in order to kill all the germs and be ready for use. But if you grabbed the dishes along the outside edges with both hands, it wasn’t a big deal. So when someone whined about the hot dishes, I took the back of the station.

By volunteering to do the work that other people complained about, I was always given more work, and I ended up getting more hours than almost everyone else–hours I desperately wanted.

Most of the work that people complain about isn’t anywhere near as bad as they describe it. Volunteer for the assignment no one wants.

This lesson has always served me well. In the jobs I’ve held since that time, I’ve always taken responsibility for work that others avoided. And I was always given greater responsibility and higher wages for having done so.

Anthony Iannarino is the President and Chief Sales Officer at SOLUTIONS Staffing.